There is one tent customers swarm to every Tuesday at the Windsor Farmers’ Market.

Beekeepers Rebekah and Benjamin Gilmore of Fort Collins set up their Copoco’s Honey booth stinging customers with their popular honey stix, creamed honey, homemade lip balm and soaps and other honey accessories.

“We make all of our products with our honey except for the soap,” Benjamin said.

“It’s local and we do all the work,” Rebekah added. “We are just a small family trying to make it work.”

Honey helps with allergies and digestion, has a good nutritional and medical value and keeps your skin moisturized.

“There is also a honey diet. Take a spoonful of honey every night before you go to bed, and it’s supposed to increase your metabolism and you’ll lose weight,” Benjamin said. “Honey has many different health benefits.”

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The top seller each week are the honey stix, which are most popular with children.

“It steers away from that corn syrup that is now dominating,” Rebekah added.

Beekeeping has been in the Gilmore family since 2004. In that same year, the family formed Bee Busters, a service that removed bees from homes and businesses. In 2005, more members of the Gilmore family joined and the Colorado Pollination Company (COPOCO) was formed. The family has several hundred beehives surrounding Fort Collins and Larimer and Weld counties. They also buy honey from local beekeepers.

“I thought it was the greatest thing in the world,” Benjamin said about beekeeping. “Then my brother joined and, it’s a family business. Now we are in it for the long haul.”

Benjamin married Rebekah in 200, and she took to the beekeeping hobby right away.

“I won her over with my chapstick,” Benjamin said with a laugh.

“It’s the freedom,” said Rebekah, who sometimes does beekeeping in a bikini. “You get to travel with nature. They are very important to the world.”

Rebekah and Benjamin said they get stung all the time, but have developed a thick skin and are not allergic to the bees, who are the only insects to produce food for humans.

“I enjoy talking with the people (at farmers’ markets),” Rebekah said. “The awareness is definitely up on bees which makes me happy because they are dying off and we are doing everything to keep them alive.”

The Gilmore family would like to thank the public for calling to professionally remove bees from their homes and businesses, without killing them.

“There can be five gallons to 40 gallons of honey in the walls,” Benjamin said. “So it’s kind of important that it’s done right and it’s not killed off with pesticides. Then you destroy all the honey, kill all the bees and have the honey dripping down your walls. It’s been a good year, people are actually calling the associations and calling us. People are doing their part to save the bees.”

Honey Stix– Popular with children. Mix and match from a variety of fruity, soar and herbal flavors.

Honey ($3)– Local wildflower honey from Weld and Larimer counties. The honey is pure, raw and unfiltered. The orange blossom honey is from Florida and Echinacea and raspberry comb honey is from Oregon.